Tiger wrote: No, and I agree Torts "new" style will leave goaltenders more vulnerable especially when the defensive play of the team is questionable.. However the "numbers" do tell me that though Luongo is playing OK. he is not at the top of his game and definitely wont steal many games..

My eyes disagree with your fantasy figures.

My eyes and numbers say that Lack has played pretty damn well for a rookie playing in his first handful of games, and Luongo is playing close to his career averages (save % slight worse than his career average, and GAA slightly better).

Goaltending would certainly be a nit-picky area to focus on at this point IMO.

Normally, I'd say I'm all for looking at stats, but sv% and GAA aren't a foolproof metric. Given a decent sample size, you can say that a goalie with impressive sv% numbers and GAA is playing great, but the opposite isn't necessarily true. The only important stat is wins. If your goalie is keeping the game close more times than not he's playing well. I'm more interested in how many games Lack and Lu give away than how many they steal. In how many games this year do you think the goaltending lost the game?

Topper wrote:Are those numbers on the goaltenders or the players in front of them giving up odd man rushes?

No, and I agree Torts "new" style will leave goaltenders more vulnerable especially when the defensive play of the team is questionable.. However the "numbers" do tell me that though Luongo is playing OK. he is not at the top of his game and definitely wont steal many games..

My eyes disagree with your fantasy figures.

hmmm ESPN and NHL.com are the source of those figures and I maintain that Luongo/Lack are not turning in Star performances.. Good goaltending YES ... Star goaltending .. No...

I love Luongo, but my only disappointment is that he turned out to be a very very very good goalie as opposed to a superstar.......the one that we thought we were getting in 2006. Luongo was a superstar in his first year here, and after an 'ok' 2007/2008 season where our defense was decimated by injuries, he played like a superstar again in 2008/09 (i.e. 5 shutouts in his first few months of the season before being injured for two months!).

Unfortunately, he was never really the same goalie/person after the 2009 playoffs against Chicago. The series just completely mind-fucked him.

Lou is still a top notch goalie, and is still one of the best goalies in the league, but he was on the path to being the next Martin Brodeur before the Chicago series of 09'. Damn shame.

Compare Luongo to how he played against Dallas in 2007 versus any series that Lou played post 2009 against Chicago, Boston, and LA, and you'll know what I'm talking about.

Compare Luongo to how he played against Dallas in 2007 versus any series that Lou played post 2009 against Chicago, Boston, and LA, and you'll know what I'm talking about.

His goaltending in the Dallas series was one of the most fantastic performances that I have ever seen by any goaltender - bar none !! But today there are many "very good goaltenders " and Lou is not the dominating player he once was.. Still very good but not the Super star that he once was.

Compare Luongo to how he played against Dallas in 2007 versus any series that Lou played post 2009 against Chicago, Boston, and LA, and you'll know what I'm talking about.

His goaltending in the Dallas series was one of the most fantastic performances that I have ever seen by any goaltender - bar none !! But today there are many "very good goaltenders " and Lou is not the dominating player he once was.. Still very good but not the Super star that he once was.

Exactly.

In my opinion, it's all because of the 2009 series against Chicago. He just never got over it.

It upsets me seeing guys like Jonathan Quick and Henrik Lundquist playing like such 'backbones' for their respective teams when I know that the 2007 Luongo was even better than them.

Having said that - Lou is still a very very very very good goalie. Still - one must wonder as to what our fate would have been had the 2007 version of Luongo been present against Boston Game 6.

The Brown Knight wrote:In my opinion, it's all because of the 2009 series against Chicago. He just never got over it.

Luongo can't hear you, because he has a gold medal stuck in his ear.

I'm not anti Luongo.

He's still a very very good goalie.

He's just not what he was pre 2009 playoffs against Chicago........even in 2011 when he put up some great numbers.

Think about this: Arguably two of Luongo's biggest wins in his career was the Gold Medal Game in 2010, and Game 7 against Chicago in 2011. In both of those games, Luongo gave up a goal with less than 2 minutes left in the game. Granted - the Olympics wasn't his fault (Nieds was at fault)........but still. The true greats hardly ever let something like that it when it matters most. Unfortunately, in Luongo's case, post 2009 playoffs, last minute goals have been semi-frequent during clutch moments.

Luongo 2007 was as good as Jonathan Quick is now. Can you say the same thing about the current Luongo?

FYI - If you have time, check out my comments (Farhan Lalji) from the playoffs of 2011.

It was around the Nashville/San Jose series where I was critical of Luongo, and then proceeded to get absolutely lambasted by posters such as Island Knucklehead and Madcombinepilot for my comments.

In 2009 after the Canucks lost to the Blackhawks, I labelled our core as being "mentally fragile"........and that perhaps a lack of talent wasn't our real issue, but that our biggest issue was perhaps 'between the ears.' Again - I was lambasted by posters such as drdork, Toucan Kid, and Island Knucklehead.

What eventually happened? I'll tell you what happened. The Boston Bruins series happened. Every single one of my fears and suspicions reared it's ugly head.

I'm not saying that I'm right all the time. Far from it. But you know - being an obsessed fan over the past 20+ years, and who knows..........maybe I'm actually right on occasion.

The Brown Knight wrote:Think about this: Arguably two of Luongo's biggest wins in his career was the Gold Medal Game in 2010, and Game 7 against Chicago in 2011. In both of those games, Luongo gave up a goal with less than 2 minutes left in the game. Granted - the Olympics wasn't his fault (Nieds was at fault)........but still.

Blame Luongo all you want for that goal, but that was one hell of a fucking effort by Toews to put that puck in the net.

You have to give credit where credit is due. Had it been the other way around and the Canucks were down by a goal and short handed with under 2 to play and Kesler scored that goal after being shutout for the entire series he would be labelled a hero. Instead, Towes scores it and it's all on Luongo.

If a Canuck scores from the faceoff dot it's "What a shot!", if the other teams scores it's "Luongo should have had that"

The Brown Knight wrote:Think about this: Arguably two of Luongo's biggest wins in his career was the Gold Medal Game in 2010, and Game 7 against Chicago in 2011. In both of those games, Luongo gave up a goal with less than 2 minutes left in the game. Granted - the Olympics wasn't his fault (Nieds was at fault)........but still.

Blame Luongo all you want for that goal, but that was one hell of a fucking effort by Toews to put that puck in the net.

You have to give credit where credit is due. Had it been the other way around and the Canucks were down by a goal and short handed with under 2 to play and Kesler scored that goal after being shutout for the entire series he would be labelled a hero. Instead, Towes scores it and it's all on Luongo.

If a Canuck scores from the faceoff dot it's "What a shot!", if the other teams scores it's "Luongo should have had that"

I would completely agree with the above statement had it been an isolated incident.

Unfortunately, as time has proven, it was not.

There have been semi-frequent occassions where "for whatever reason", a goal has been scored against Lou either in the last two minutes of the period, or at some clutch point. This has been a consistent trend since the 2009 playoffs.

HAVING SAID THAT............I do concede that:

1) The fans' treatment of Luongo in this city, particularly in 2012, was ridiculous.2) Luongo is a very very very very good goalie.

I think it's fair to say that as far as level goes, he's this generation's version of Curtis Joseph.

Back in 2006 however, I just felt that we'd be getting this generation's version of Brodeur, Hasek, and Roy............and given the evidence leading up to 2009, I had every reason to feel that way.